GOOD OLD SUSSEX UNDER THE SEA

Printed in the National League South game v Farnborough Town Saturday 15^th April 2023  We won 2-0 in front of 933. 

Easter is a time to not just gorge yourself on chocolate shaped eggs but football. The Good Friday miracle of Slough scoring six meant I could enjoy the weekend a whole lot more, and after watching my little ‘un play football I jumped on the train then bus to the most far flung Sussex footballing outpost – Selsey. Now I could finally sing ‘I drive up to Muswell Hill, I’ve even been to Selsey Bill.’ Total Madness.

Buses are just £2 a trip at the moment but as we huttled through the countryside I pondered why the bus had no more than a dozen passengers. Chichester is a very well to do place; not that you would know it from its run down bus station, as dirty water dripped on my head (even more worrying was where it had come from, as it was a sunny day) and no realtime bus info – this is hardly the facilities to get people out of their cars.

We headed through Selsey 'Bungalow' Bill and past the beach before I hopped off at their tidy high street with small independent shops and pubs and a football club just where it should be. No, not next to a big co-op supermarket but bang in the middle of town.

Who hasn’t shouted Hi Di Ho as their entered their Seal Bay Stadium past the old Pontins gates – part of the old holiday camp which was flattened in the Great Storm in 1987 and is now a massive housing estate. Jutting out to sea, Selsey is on the frontline of floods and rising sea levels while its landmass slowly sinks. Selsey was once virtually an island. Even now, there is only one main route into the town – the road from Chichester. It was on Selsey island that Christianity was introduced to Sussex around AD 680 when St  Wilfrid was driven ashore during a storm and subsequently founded a monastery and cathedral there. Both have long disappeared beneath the sea due to coastal erosion.

I paid a fiver but there was an online programme only and I reckon they missed a trick today with a bumper crowd of 381. Which is very impressive for a town of just 11,000 and for a game ten leagues below the Premier. Selsey are the Southern Combination Division One’s best supported club averaging 180. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many families or mascots at a match. Being out in the sticks, it’s not as if you can go and support another club easily but with their programme plea for more volunteers and coaches to support all their teams, they are obviously a popular and proper community club.

It was Selsey who had inflicted Shorehams first defeat of the season at the end of February – a run that made the Musselmen the last team in the football pyramid to lose. They’ve sat top of the league for most of the season and a win today would more of less guarentee them promotion. As for Selsey they are hoping to be in the play offs and back to the Southern Combination Premier. The highest they have ever played.

The ground had everything – well apart from a stature of a seal. Plenty of space for kids to kick footballs, hitting each other with sticks and poking in mudpiles. There were Narnia type houses whose back garden gates lead into the ground with tortoiseshell butterflies enjoying the nettle patches. But the pitch. Blimey, it was in perfect nick which is just as well cos the youngsters made use of it at half time and after the game.

It was a very decent, if goaless first half and it ended all square at 1-1. So champagne on ice till Monday where Shoreham were hosting near neighbours Mile Oak – which is literally a bus stop in Brighton.

Bank Holiday Monday and I couldn’t get to Taunton, so like some glory hunter I headed to Middle Road to see Shoreham hopefully win the league. There was only one problem with this plan. As the rain lashed down, the players training outside the ground got the shout. The ref had called the game off. To say Shoreham would be disapointed is an understatement. The chance of winning the league in front of a big bank holiday crowd scuppered by the good old British bank holiday weather.

I know people love a grass pitch, but we do need to invest at this level to give all clubs who want it 3G. Instead, too many will be struggling up and down the country to fit games in before the play-offs start. The climate times are a changing and just like everything else in our society, lower league football needs to change and adapt with it, if it has a chance of continuing to thrive.